Storytime! The internet can be terrible, but a really cool thing happened to me today: I got a DM from an older man on Facebook who said he recognized my last name in a Czech polka music group we're both in (listen, I have some very niche interests)
We shared our family trees on @Ancestry, and lo and behold, our third great grandfathers were brothers. And Fred, my newly found relative, actually traveled to visit our distant relatives in Vizovice, Czech Republic this summer.
According to Fred's tour guide in the Czech Republic, about 85 percent of Czech Texans immigrated here from the Vizovice area, and "that's why everyone is related."
I now have an email inbox full of information about relatives I knew very little about before today (names, birth dates and death dates were all I had to go off of) and email addresses for my relatives still in the Czech Republic. And a new friend named Fred!
I'm now email penpals with a Houston lawyer who is somehow a distant Czech cousin of mine. Social media isn't so bad! 
I can't get over the fact that he's a @UTAustin alum and a former journalist. What a world.
OK, there's more to the story now that I'm reading Fred's emails. He hired a genealogy researcher during his trip to the Czech Republic, and he tracked down the family home where our 3rd great grandfathers grew up.
And - get this - there are still Psenciks living there! In the same house! They hosted him and "put on a huge spread of food including Kolche and homemade Slivovitz!" (Slivovitz is a type of brandy made with plums)
(I *may* have misread the genealogy researcher's information about the family home being where my 3rd great grandfather also grew up - it may not have been. I'm trying to clarify. But still, THIS IS COOL.)
Omg! It WAS the same house. Now two generations of Psenciks still live on the land once occupied by my ancestors. I’m a lil teary eyed about this, y’all.
Just got off the phone with my grandparents. My grandpa, a proud Psencik, sat in stunned silence as I fought back tears telling him this story. This is a part of our family we’ve never known much about and now they may be just an email away.
Obviously I HAVE to turn this into a story now. I can’t wait to find out more and share it with y’all. My dad and I are planning a trip to Prague, but looks like we’ll have to swing through a little town in Moravia, too.
